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Cisco XDR vs IBM Security QRadar comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
23rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security QRadar
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (5th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (15th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cisco XDR is 2.0%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security QRadar is 3.1%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Aruna Udawatte - PeerSpot reviewer
Network visibility improves with centralized maintenance and responsive support
The single point of maintenance and dashboards are the strong points of Cisco XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ). The visibility of the network is the main valuable feature. Customers frequently request features that offer better system visibility. The solution also offers automated response capability, which I would rate around eight out of ten.
Mahmoud Younes - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable installation and diverse use cases provide strong value
IBM Security QRadar has some areas for improvement. We have missed some DSM components. We need to customize logs where there is no DSM or connector for certain products. We can integrate but we have missed the DSM, which is the connector to pass logs coming from different applications. For example, with a university customer, we tried onboarding Canvas service. IBM Security QRadar does not support Canvas, so we had to create custom scripts and workarounds to pull logs from Canvas.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the reliability."
"I appreciate the granularity of what I get from Cisco XDR the most."
"The feature I appreciate the most about Cisco XDR is the reliability."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"One of my favorite features of Cisco XDR is the automation tool, which saves a lot of time because we can craft these automations and workflows."
"The features of Cisco XDR benefit my company since time is money. When outages happen and when a customer can't reach the internet, they get agitated. Therefore, the quicker we can mitigate an issue, our customers get happier in a quicker fashion."
"Cisco XDR offers threat intelligence and links with the Firewall."
"Technical support from Cisco is good and very helpful."
"The scalability is awesome, because QRadar includes other solutions in the same console."
"Flexible and valuable product that is modular, so you can easily set up a roadmap for your clients."
"The most valuable feature is the QRadar Vulnerability Manager which provides vulnerability scans. In addition, I like the way QRadar generates alerts."
"We are using the platform version, which I like."
"Integration is very easy and the reporting is good."
"The threat protection network is the most valuable feature, because when you get an offense, you can actually trace it back to where it originated from, how it originated, and why."
"The most valuable features are all the implementations, the plug-ins, and the User Behavior Analytics (UBA)."
"The visibility it gives you into your infrastructure has been great."
 

Cons

"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost."
"If we have a list of domains we need to block, such as 4,000 domains, I can only block 100 domains at a time because if I put in more than 100 domains, I hit that 2,000 character max and can't continue with an investigation. Being able to put in all 4,000 domains, without a character limit or observable limit, would make doing those case books a whole lot easier and blocking those domains a whole lot easier too."
"My only complaint about Cisco XDR is related to licensing, which is complicated."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost. Everything matters for us since we're small, mom and pop, so every dollar counts."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"One area that needs improvement is the limited visibility due to the licensing structure. For more visibility, customers need the advantage or premier licensing, which involves additional costs."
"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"The product needs to improve its GUI."
"QVM is another instance where they need to revise the vulnerability scoring and the proper remediation details."
"They should speed up the incident response and also, at the same time, reduce the amount of manual effort that is required."
"There are reports that I would like to generate that are either not included, or I cannot find."
"They have to build more quantitative monitoring, profiling, and make it more predictive."
"IBM technical support is always terrible."
"I have noticed a few things while working on this. After the restart of the server, sometimes, the services misbehave, and you need to manually start or restart the service. I have seen that specifically with the Tomcat service. Sometimes, when you click on log sources, instead of opening the log source extension, it redirects you over the internet."
"The dashboards are all legacy and old."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"IBM's Qradar is not for small companie. Unfortunately, it would be 'overkill' to place it plainly. The pricing would be too much."
"The price of this solution is reasonable."
"It is a perpetual license that we have for the event collector. The licensing is done based on the number of events and flows that you receive on this particular device. These are perpetual licenses, which means once you purchase them, they don't expire, which means that the support to IBM is definitely renewed after every one year. We have an enterprise agreement with IBM, which puts the cost in a totally different category as compared to someone who is not an IBM partner and is approaching IBM for this solution. We were able to get massive discounts. To give you an idea, we recently purchased 30,000 event licenses, and it costs around $480,000. It is definitely not a cheap product. We have licenses for about 270,000 events per second and 3 million flows per second. All the appliances and their events and flows are basically clubbed together and charged or rather calculated through a single source. The console receives all the details from all the event processes that we have globally. So, the license that we have is a single license for 270,000 events per second and 3 million flows per second, but that can be managed centrally. I was only part of the secondary purchase, which was 30,000 events per second for about $480,000. You can calculate how much we paid for 270,000 events. Reducing its price would be a compromise. We have already used a lower-priced product in the form of NNT, but we had to get rid of it because it was not doing the job that we actually wanted to do. You get what you pay for."
"The solution is costly and the price differs depending on the vendor you use."
"The price of this solution is a little bit expensive, so if it were cheaper then it would help."
"think the pricing is quite flexible."
"They can give us some scalability and flexibility on pricing. If its pricing can be reduced, it would help a lot of customers in bringing in a new SIEM environment and grow business in the market. If I start a license today and take around 10,000 EPS, and after a month, there is an increase in the number of clients on my platform, I can increase the number of licenses. I can add 5,000 EPS on a yearly basis."
"found other solutions, with more features at the same cost or less. You don’t have to leave the Gartner Magic Quadrant to beat their price."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions are best for your needs.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

VS
Jun 28, 2015
Qradar vs. ArcSight
Continuing with the SIEM posts we have done at Infosecnirvana, this post is a Head to head comparison of the two Industry leading SIEM products in the market – HP ArcSight and IBM QRadar Both the products have consistently been in the Gartner Leaders Quadrant. Both HP and IBM took over niche SIEM…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated.
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
My only complaint about Cisco XDR is related to licensing, which is complicated.
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
We use Cisco XDR for our network devices and data centers, as we are an internet provider. We deliver the internet to customers.
What are the biggest differences between Securonix UEBA, Exabeam, and IBM QRadar?
It mostly depends on your use-cases and environment. Exabeam and Securonix have a stronger UEBA feature set, friendlier GUI and are not licensed based on capacity (amount of logs and information in...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is asking to miss details that are critical, and ending up a statistic. Also, rememb...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Security QRadar?
When comparing with Splunk, IBM Security QRadar's cost is reasonable. Splunk is more expensive than IBM Security QRadar.
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM QRadar, QRadar SIEM, QRadar UBA, QRadar on Cloud, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Clients across multiple industries, such as energy, financial, retail, healthcare, government, communications, and education use QRadar.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco XDR vs. IBM Security QRadar and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.